


Muggle Chess

by potter_queen



Series: Burning [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter RPF
Genre: Draco has kids, He lonely, It's not part of the story, M/M, and some of draco's history, basically this is a little prequel to something big i have coming, draco and ron meet for the first time since the was basically, its just a little fic to give some context, not ickle harry though, so does Ron, they're 40!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 06:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20810918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potter_queen/pseuds/potter_queen
Summary: Let me know what you think of this! I'm not sure when I will be posting Burning, but it is truly a labour of love and I can't wait to post it. This is just a rushed little fic because I had this in my head and couldn't get it out. Draco/Ron bromance is my favourite ever.





	Muggle Chess

England had not changed in the twenty years Draco had been away. The crisp English air was unforgettable, and Draco’s first lungful of two decades filled him with a sudden, sharp nostalgia and a surge of national pride that rises in his throat like heartburn.

His portkey had dropped him off in Wiltshire, on a lonely hill he had visited often as a child. From this vantage point he could look down the valley at the muggle village, which looked more modern than he remembered. There were a multitude of cars that had never been there before. 

Twisting, slowly, he could observe the place where Malfoy Manor had once stood. When he let out his breath, it bloomed into a white cloud in front of his face.

It was strange to see a field where his childhood home had once stood. There was still a low wall erected, marking out the plot of land, and the forest just beyond that had been home to many magical creatures when his father had had the time to breed them. They must be all gone now, removed by the Ministry after the demolition, lest an unsuspecting muggle meet a Thestral.

The stream that marked the edge of the property stretches out in the distance, disappearing between the trees. Draco had spent many a lazy summer day constructing paper boats to push out into the water, or wading up to his knees to fly fish unsuccessfully (he never had the heart to kill anything, abyway). In his early teen years he would sit with his feet in the water, reading for hours.

He begins his descent down the hill, slowly and unhurriedly. The grass is crunchy and frozen underfoot, and the wind makes him shiver, but he doesn’t cast a warming charm. Not here. He wants to feel the cold and all the pain, and the horror.

Draco steps over the low wall where there was once a wall higher than his head. And here had been his mother’s rose garden, pride of place for all visitors to see. There is nothing now, just long grass and rabbit holes. 

Even the driveway is gone, and the greenhouses, and the Quidditch pitch. There is no indication here, anymore, that there was once a palatial home in this field, which had been filled with joy and family, and destroyed with cruelty and horrors and violence.

It is strange to be here, though not in the way Draco had suspected it might be. He had thought he might be able to feel His ghost here, somehow feel the destruction he had caused.

He feels nothing. 

It’s comforting. His inner, frightened teenager is comforted by the fact that the evil that once dominated his life has now faded to nothing. Everything passes eventually, and everything fades away.

He walks on, past where the house was, and the gardener’s outhouse, and the fountain and the stables. He goes on past what remains of the orchard, wizened trees which have fallen into disrepair and will not bear fruit again. He walks on.

The stream is all that remains. The everlasting life blood of this place, that not even He could stop from flowing. Draco smiles, and crouches to submerge his hand in the water. It is freezing, and burns his skin and numbs his fingers, but he just turns his hand over and feels the power of the water as it rushes past.

There’s an otter, a little ways off, busily working despite the cold. Draco watches it for a long time, till his face is truly numb and his legs are stiff and cramping. He stands with a stretch and turns slowly to look at the place again. It is not a haunted place. He is overwhelmed to realise that. It was what it was in the past, and now it is just an overgrown field, home to otters and rabbits and the like. It is just part of this patch of countryside, nothing more and nothing less. The passage of time has soothed the wound that He had created here. 

He lets out a deep breath, letting go of the tension he had been holding deep down, and letting himself mourn for what was, and what will never be again. And that is okay. Draco has made his peace with a lot of things in the time that has passed, and now he can make his peace with Wiltshire, the fairytale land of his childhood and his horror-filled prison during the war.

He twists on the spot, and disappears.

~

Draco finds a house that he loves after a couple of weeks spent renting a muggle apartment. It’s in the countryside, complete with several acres of woodland and gardens. The house itself is small in comparison to Draco’s previous homes, but this is not a house for children and elderly parents and partners, this is a house just for him. 

It has a comfortable master suite, complete with balcony overlooking the gardens. The kitchen is fully furnished with worn wooden floors and burnished copper appliances. The table is large and wooden and polished to a shine. 

The library-office is cosy and comfortable, complete with large, leather armchairs angled round a grand fireplace. 

The place is well loved, and Draco falls in love. A few days after moving in, Draco discovers the house has come with a tabby cat, who takes to Draco immediately.

His son comes to stay, and help Draco move in. He hugs his father after a tour around the house, a rare show of physical affection from his eldest child.

The countryside around his new home is beautiful and rambling, wild for miles before the nearest muggle village, a quaint little place with a church, a pub a small supermarket and not much else. Draco loves it. He walks for hours in the countryside, exploring the terrain and observing the wildlife. He has dinner some evenings in the pub, watching the football games and revelling in the _ Englishness _ of it all. 

At home he reads, and thinks, and before long, he sets up a little potions lab in the back room. In France, Draco had studying under a Potions Master till eventually achieving the status himself. He had done mostly freelance work, and had worked as a potions-poisoning consulted for the Lyon hospital.

For years Draco had been imagining a shop, small and dark and filled with colourful bottles and vials and jars. A place he could practice his craft for the sake of loving the subtle science and exact art of potioneering. After several months of solitary English living, he set out to realise his dream.

Transforming the neglected building on the corner of Diagon and Knockturn became a labour of love for Draco. Every element had to be perfect, just as he imagined it. The spellwork involved quite a feat of undetectable extension charmwork that had Draco worn out for days upon finishing. 

After hundreds of hours of physical labour, buying ingredients and glassware and hiring an accountant,  _ Senses Ensnared  _ opened quietly one Monday morning. The little shop became Draco’s oasis, with a well-kitted basement for brewing, a big, comfortable desk on the main floor of the shop for Draco to lounge in whenever he decided to actually open the shop. The freedom of relying entirely on himself, and having no boss or contracter to answer to was liberating. He had never needed to work for money in his life, but being idle had always bothered Draco; he liked the feeling of a job well done.

The shop did pretty well, which surprised Draco endlessly. He ended up not only covering the costs of his ingredients, but actually turning a profit within the first six months. He took bespoke orders, too, which was what a lot of customers came to him for.

He visited his family as often as he could, sometimes several times a week by international Floo. He kept busy brewing, and walking the countryside and reading. It was a long time before he felt the need to make a few friends.

Draco was a sociable person by nature, he had been all his life. In France he and Astoria had had hordes of friends, from their work and hobbies and societies. Draco saw them when he returned to France and enjoyed their company greatly. He had a life long friend in Pansy, who had left for America immediately after the war and refused to return to England since. They wrote long letters, and flooed, and Draco visited her glamorous penthouse in New York yearly.

Back in England, he began to miss the company of people his age, people to have fun with, people to talk about politics and business with. 

He had long ago lost contact with his friends from school, and he could not stand the thought of attending ‘club’ parties of societies he, by name, was a member of. It was Astoria, in the end, who suggested the idea of joining a book club, or perhaps chess, in order to meet like minded people his age.

And that was how Draco Malfoy found himself standing in the hall of a muggle secondary school on a Tuesday night, chatting to a man in a tweed waistcoat by the name of Wallace, and a slight woman with bright red glasses who introduced herself as Pat.

Draco had long ago learnt how to behave himself in front of muggles, and was doing a fine job spinning a yarn about a boring job they would never look into. He had fully intended to attend a Wizarding chess group tonight, and had sent in his registration fee and application only to receive a very short letter in reply clearly telling him that there were ‘no Death Eaters welcome.’ Without his registration fee, of course. The incident had shaken Draco, although he had really been expecting some sort of attack since he had arrived in the country. In a sort of defiance, Draco had searched for a muggle chess group on the same night, and eventually stumbled across this one.

Wallace was checking his little contraption for the time when he exclaimed happily; “Aha! Seven thirty, Ronald will be here any second. He’ll be delighted you’ve joined, you’ll even up the numbers.”

“Ronald?” Draco replied mildly, tilting his head. The name rang a bell. Pat hummed beside him. “He’s our chair. Always bang on time. It’s like he just appears.”

Draco barely had time to wonder at that comment when the door to the hall opened, and Draco’s jaw dropped.

Ron Weasley was striding into the hall, wearing a pair of dark jeans and a red jumper which clashed horribly with his thick head of red hair. He was no longer the awkward, gangly boy that Draco had once know. Gone was the slouch and awkward loping walk, now he held himself straight and walked with the confidence of a man who had his shit together, pardon Draco’s french. Somehow even the ridiculous jumper did not make him look ridiculous at all; this man carried himself so differently to the boy Draco had known that Draco had to question whether he was the same person.

Any doubt he had was erased when Weasley’s eyes fell on Draco. His eyes widened comically and his foot caught in the air. He shook himself out of it long enough to say hello to the group and ask them to pull out the chess boards. He handed Pat a key to what was apparently the chess cupboard distractedly before beelining towards Draco.

He stood in front of Draco for a long moment, apparently at a loss for words. “ _ Malfoy?” _ He spluttered eventually.

Draco opened his mouth and closed it again. What on earth were the odds that of all the British chess clubs that Draco should choose to come here tonight. What on earth was  _ Weasley _ doing here?

“ _ Weasley?” _

“But… what the bloody hell are you doing here?”

Draco bristled. He felt his jaw tense painfully. He was destined to never play a game of chess in England. “I was  _ planning _ on playing chess.”

“No- I didn’t mean,” Weasley spluttered incredulously. “I just meant, I mean, what are you doing  _ here? _ ”

“I could ask you the same thing! What are you doing chairing a muggle chess club!”

Weasley shushed him, looking around to see if anyone was listening. No one was. “I’ve been chairing this club for years! I like chess. The Wizarding club is full of stuck up pricks.”

A surprised snort left Draco before he could stop it. Weasley looked at him, looking as surprised as Draco felt. “They wouldn’t let me join.”

“Bastards. Load of snobby Pureblood pillocks. No offence.”

“None taken.”

“So. No one’s seen you for two decades, and all of a sudden you show up at a muggle chess club. What the hell?”

“I haven’t been  _ hiding _ .” Draco retorts hotly. He doesn’t like the implication. “I haven’t been in England.”

“But why here?”

“I don’t know anyone in England. I wanted to find somewhere to play chess at the same time as those ‘snobby Pureblood pillocks.’ I’m just as shocked as you are.”

Weasley runs a broad hand through his flaming hair. “Well you do even up the numbers. I’ve been playing two people for weeks.”

The pairs seemed to have formed now, everyone is sitting at school desks and arranged their boards. There is a desk left at the end of the row. Draco decides he might as well brazen this out, as is usually his trick when he is unsure.

“Well, Weasley, I hope you’re ready for a good game.”

“You want to play me?”

“I don’t see anyone else left.”

Weasley looks at him appraisingly. Draco thinks he comes up well because Weasley nods decisively and marches towards the desk. “Don’t call me Weasley, makes me feel like I’m at work.”

“Ronald, then.”

“Not that either, Merlin, only get called that when I’m in trouble.”

“Well, Ron then. Though I suppose if you want to get that friendly you might as well call me Draco.”

“Draco.” Ron says, and laughs. “Merlin’s balls, who would have thought I’d be sitting on a tiny bloody chair playing chess with Draco Malfoy, on first name terms.”

He doesn’t seem annoyed about it, so Draco chuckles and knocks out one of Ron’s pawns. Ron laughs again and retaliates, and in a few minutes they’re absorbed in the game, their opponent’s name and face forgotten, focused only at the game at hand.

Draco wins, but it doesn’t matter, because the week after that Ron beats him. After a few weeks, Ron invites Draco out for a pint, and before he knows it, Draco has found himself a friend in England, in the form of Ronald Weasley, his former rival and someone Draco once hated. 

Ron Weasley turns out to be a great friend. He is funny and self deprecating and full of stories about his children. He is intelligent enough to talk about politics with, and before long Draco even finds himself opening up about his past to the man.

He meets Hermione, and his children, and it’s a little awkward at first, but after a bottle of wine and a long overdue apology, Draco finds himself liking Hermione as much as any of his friends back in France. Their kids are delightful, and they love Draco, and Draco finds himself with dinner plans every Thursday at the Weasley-Granger’s.

Potter seems to be a big part of their lives, even after all these years. They mention him often, and there are pictures of him amidst the rest of the family, and Rosie and Hugo refer to him as Uncle Harry.

It is not till months after meeting Ron, however, that Harry Potter shows up at their Thursday night dinner, and Draco’s world twists, irreparably, on its axis.


End file.
